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The offender must be warned that his caution may be cited in court if he offends in future. Records are kept for at least five years.

A formal caution may be regarded as appropriate where the offender is elderly, infirm or suffering from a severe physical illness. It may also be used where a person is suffering from mental illness or impairment, particularly if the strain of proceedings would worsen his condition.

If an offender is not prepared to admit his guilt, the police will have to consider whether to initiate a prosecution or drop the case.

If the law is changed so that a person who receives a formal caution for a sexual offence is placed on List 99, the police would have to warn the offender that he can no longer work in a school. Otherwise, the offender might be able to claim that he had been misled into giving up his right under the Human Rights Convention to a fair hearing of the allegations against him.

A new system of conditional cautioning was introduced last year by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Where the scheme operates, it allows prosecutors to attach conditions to a caution.

These are designed to achieve rehabilitation or reparation, such as attendance at a drug clinic or cleaning graffiti off a building.

Like the "simple" caution, to which no conditions are attached, a conditional caution may be given only to a person who admits committing the offence.